Dry Weather For The Next Couple of Weeks

Let's count our blessings for the stormy weather of last week. Parts of the foothills west of Reno received nearly 4 inches of rain. The higher elevations received over 2 feet of snow. That is free water. However, that snow will probably not stick around as our weather will be for the most part dry with seasonal temperatures. The possible exception to this is next Sunday into Monday. A system will approach from our north. The models have this system pushing down and giving us an opportunity for valley rain and mountain snow. That is a long way off. I will update if this system turns into anything substantial.

There is a very strong MJO in the Indian ocean. That should move east out into the Western Pacific. What does this mean? There is a chance for a major storm brewing up in about 2-3 weeks as the MJO tracks east. MJO, which stands for Madden–Julian oscillation, can be used as a predictor for our weather. A very similar pattern to what we are seeing now took place in 1996, albeit a few months later. This active MJO pattern in that year, led to a very large storm that caused widespread flooding throughout Northern California and Oregon. This I will keep my eye on, as a good size storm at the beginning of November, could open our mountain resorts.


Incidentally, this is fairly typical of a La Nina event. In my last post I talked about this being another La Nina winter and to expect somewhere around average snowfall. La Nina, in our area, is famous for very large storms and then longer periods of dryer weather. How that shakes out this year, we will just have to see. Stay tuned ...